Friday, September 27, 2013

Broad Answers to Various E-mails

I am currently having trouble responding to or sending e-mails.

I've gotten several from the members here, the last from the Arachnoid resident of the Big Apple about guns, laws, lawsuits in MD. But my answer to him fits most of my thoughts about guns, gun ownership, mass shootings, etc. right now. So, here goes...

Mary Land is just another state run by a minority of idiot hand wringers, who lord it over the populace!

Right now, I'm
reading a book about the Civil War that was written around 1905. It's the 4th or 5th book I've gotten for free from the Project Gutenberg for my Kindle, about that same period of history. This writer was 17 or 18 when the war started, joined what became the
Illinois 61st, and worked up from a Pvt to getting a Commission as a LT.

I read a lot of that kind of stuff, and here's what amazes me more and more as I learn more and more. All of the writers talk about their family's firearms.

Most
of those young men who lived in what was then the 'wilderness', could
barely read if at all, and yet they managed to learn how, when and where to use
firearms. They learned to build a fire without a Bic lighter, they
could melt and re-melt lead to make bullets without killing or maiming
themselves and others and without setting fire to the town, city, county
or state. They learned to carry a pocketknife AND rifle to school so
they could protect themselves AND hunt for dinner coming and going and
the learned to skin that small game, without losing fingers, stabbing
teachers or committing general mayhem with knife or gun.

In this book I'm reading now, he talks about his first battle being Shiloh. And he recounts that his Captain had to yell at him to get him to fire his rifle during his first skirmish, because he was looking for a distinct target in the haze of gunsmoke, but couldn't find one. The black powder they used then was NOT smokeless, so a minute into the battle, neither side could see their enemy's firing lines. He says he didn't want to 'waste' his shot because when he was growing up, lead was hard to come by.

He says he was taught to shoot squirrels in the head, so he that didn't waste the lead, powder or meat and fur, and that his friends were taught to shoot like that too! That's pretty damned good shooting considering the guns of the 1850's. It's a big WOW for me every time I read one of those kinds of stories, no matter how many times I read them.

But to wrap around to the present however,
in a day and age where kids from the age of 3 or 4, have access to more
knowledge at their finger tips than scholars had 25 or 30 years ago, we
cannot teach those same skills. In fact, we have gun free / knife free
zones AROUND schools where EVEN adults cannot carry a gun or knife! Places where even a picture of a gun is not allowed!

[with tongue firmly placed in cheek, he said...]

I
wonder what changed about us, that we can't do what a 13 or 14 year old
could do in 1860? Or why we can't draw a picture and not shoot or cut
ourselves with that piece of art work? Are we that stupid or hapless?
.
.
Schteveo

Funny thing, I was thinking the exact same thing a couple days ago. At work, I was talking to one of the guys and we were discussing the inability of the majority of Americans to survive without the benifit of all the modern "necessities".

At the start of WWI, my great-grandfather was tasked, with his older brother (they were 11 and 14 at the time) with moving the family's household furniture from Ogden, Utah to Pocatello, Idaho, about 150 miles. The did it with an old Conastoga wagon that their dad borrowed and a team of draft horses. It took them 12 days. Mom, Dad and his sisters got in the family car (old model T) and said "see you when you get there"

I have a hard time letting my son take the car to go on a 3 hour date in town. as a society we have dumbed down. When the fit hits the shan, I think it is going to be interesting and I don't think we are going to worry about overpopulation for a while after hit happens.

alan,I was the guy who heard from both sides of our families that I was too tough on my sons. I never backed down and rarely if ever doubted how I raised them. They're reasonably intelligent and self sufficient, and I don't see that in many guys their ages.

I have two of the grandsons here in the house, and I don't treat them any different than I did my kids. And I STILL here that crap from family and friends now too. I just hope I'm around long enough to make a difference in their lives.